Lookie, an update!
http://extras.actionquest.com/updates/
go there for shipmate blogs and pictures, for 3rd session I'm going back to Couteau!
Sorry my updates don't really ever happen guys, so lots has gone on since the last time I wrote and I imagine more will before I get a chance to update again.
Something notable was the fact that a day before the shipmates arrived last session one of the skippers quit, so while I was indeed on Pine with Gordo, instead of having the Chad we got Al who was just certified by AQ as a Divemaster (aka, scuba instructors bitch assistant). Was mildly freaked out since I know the basics of sailing from sitting in on shipmate lessions and just watching what all goes on, but not having someone to help Gordo was a bit scary... luckily Al had been here for 4 summers doing courses so he knew what to do.
It was interesting being the one female instructor on board, especially since we had 4 girls and 8 boys between the ages of 13-14. I have to say that this has been the most domestic time of my life, ever. Ever EVER. I was always the one in the kitchen to help, prepare and at the very least supervise the cooking of meals (and we had no boat fires, before anyone asks... my ramen noodles are just as good as the next boats). I also got to be the one to try and keep the shipmates clean and doing little chores around the boat, although Gordo ran some awesome boat clean ups. and Al... was sorta a big shipmate who ate more than the rest and generally stayed out of the way. I never actually dove with him, although I had him lead 2 of my barracudas on a pleasure dive and he got them lost... so that did make them look up to me a bit more and I'll take that.
Also regarding staffing last session, I had the mortifying discovery that i was the oldest person on the boat, at a whopping age of 20. Gordo turned 20 a few days before end of session and hosted a party for the staff, where we exiled the mates to the bow of the boat and broke out the cold cokes, pizza and junk food. We also ate downstairs which no one is supposed to do, so it was kinda fun ot break the rules then hear the mates getting in trouble for it later... hehe. The party was a lot of fun though, we all talked about the random things that have happened this session and the pranks that have been played and who we though the culprits were. Pranking is a fairly honored tradition here it seems, so I'm still working on some good ones to pull this last session, since I can guarantee no one will see them coming from me. A personal favorite was waking up with crabs, or at least being crabby. Banana (the resident prank boat) had taken hermit crabs off the local island that night and deposited them around the various boats... we later had a moment of silence for them at a staff meeting when Mike explained they were land hermit crabs, so the shipmates throwing them overboard would have proven fatal... ooops. Another was that the rescue boat retrieved a lost anchor for couteau, then sank it again in the night in the middle of the bay with couteaus dingy attached to it. the thank you cake that was baked for the rescue boat was still given to them, upside down on their deck, with icing. Haven't pulled any pranks myself yet, but I did choose to drop off some dive lights at a randomly early morning on Banana, and had the staff radio-ing around asking what had happened, what we'd done, and trying to figure out what was missing. at this poing I think I could just opt with performing random acts of kindness and having all of the staff freaking out about what potentially bad things could be happening that they're missing.
All in all it was a really good session, the first one I was sorta antsy the whole time trying to get my bearings, but halfway into the second one I was more familiar and felt a bit more secure about what all I had to do. Part of the insecurity may have been due to Thumper, the dingy that I was gifted with last session and will be taking to Couteau in a few days. General statement when asked about Thumper, "I HATE Thumper", and general rants and raves about how she/he dies randomly and is hard to start, etc. Had a lot of trouble getting Thumper working for a while, and Al was the only one she liked.. so lucky him he got to help me cart empty tanks all the time, but then he ran over some reef and she started to like him a little less. Had my own day of carelessness where i was happy my open waters had done their first deeper dive and were awesome, my advanced divers had identified fish that didn't involve names that could be associated with anything lewd (go figure, the one fish they find in a book of thousands is called a Slippery Dick... 2 out of 3 sessions they've defied those odds, dammit). Anywho, I had Al with me, I was speeding along in Thumper, I see Jordan on Manic waving, and then Badumph! reef. Luckily no damage was done to the dingy, and my apologies to the reef... but that might have put some fear of retirement into Thumper cuz I've had better luck with her since. go figure.
All in all, despite perviness, a scuffle, and some theivery on the boat (all 3 accomplished by one, perviness by all really), the shipmates were a lot of fun. I was overjoyed that they had more than one CD, so that's a much better spread than last session, and some of them were oldies songs which was fun. Was slightly concerned that the boys adopted a song about rainbows to be the wake up song and general boat theme song... plus they pulled a quick one on the staff by buying a pink skull and crossbones flag that said Pirate Girl and put it on our boat (we figured it was a different boat, not our adolescent boys coming to grip with some version of sexuality... blech). Also lots of high pitched noises coming from the boys at night when they would play truth or dare up top... right above the staff bunk where Gordo and I slept. I guess I didn't care so much about their self proclaimed "gay time fiestas", but I just don't recall this sort of ranodom perviness when I was that age... maybe it's a gender thing. Did scare the crap out of them one morning by alluding to a few rumors I'd picked up and made them think I'd heard a whole game, of truth or dare (hehe) also had the boys from Venezuala concerned that I knew spanish fluently after yelling at them for talking about inappropraite things. So while they got away with some stuff, they did think that walls had ears and things quieted down some. Had some fun dance offs with the shipmates though, laughed when they created scuba skill moves to the beat of one song and had a little scuba macarena of sorts. Also learned some sailing terms in French for one boy who barely spoke english and generally couldn't keep up with the group during lectures and random discussions. One night I let Al and Gordo hit the bar and volunteered to watch the sea monkies (Kyle, the scuba director on another boat called them all monkeys and I figured sea monkeys was all too approrpriate), so Nicolas (the French student) and I stayed up and talked some and struggled to tie some monkeys fists and turks heads till the other shipmates crashed our knot tying party... pretty cool. Not to mention that the diving is pretty amazing, and working with a bunch of advanced is fun since it's more play and less work. On our deep dive we took a bottle down so we could put compressed air in it and have it expand on it's way to the surface (half the flotilla prolly heard when a shipmate took the lid off that dasani bottle and it flew past the sail with a bang and puff), plus eggs at depth don't really fall apart... the yolk becomes all rubber and you can squish it around and roll it between your fingers and stuff, good fun. And on a note, at least as far as diving goes, the old saying that men never ask for directions is true... only the girls would admit they got lost on the Navigation dive and surfaced to look for the dingy... the guys swam in murky water until they lucked our and found us again... goobers. But all in all I can't complain about the students on a dive note.
Anywho, tis the day off and I'm trying to find as much fresh fruit and veggies as I can find since those are a rare commodity on the boat. I hope everyone is doing well and I'll be home pretty soon since the next session is only 17 days and I leave shortly after the session ends. I hope everyone is doing well and having a good time, take care!
go there for shipmate blogs and pictures, for 3rd session I'm going back to Couteau!
Sorry my updates don't really ever happen guys, so lots has gone on since the last time I wrote and I imagine more will before I get a chance to update again.
Something notable was the fact that a day before the shipmates arrived last session one of the skippers quit, so while I was indeed on Pine with Gordo, instead of having the Chad we got Al who was just certified by AQ as a Divemaster (aka, scuba instructors bitch assistant). Was mildly freaked out since I know the basics of sailing from sitting in on shipmate lessions and just watching what all goes on, but not having someone to help Gordo was a bit scary... luckily Al had been here for 4 summers doing courses so he knew what to do.
It was interesting being the one female instructor on board, especially since we had 4 girls and 8 boys between the ages of 13-14. I have to say that this has been the most domestic time of my life, ever. Ever EVER. I was always the one in the kitchen to help, prepare and at the very least supervise the cooking of meals (and we had no boat fires, before anyone asks... my ramen noodles are just as good as the next boats). I also got to be the one to try and keep the shipmates clean and doing little chores around the boat, although Gordo ran some awesome boat clean ups. and Al... was sorta a big shipmate who ate more than the rest and generally stayed out of the way. I never actually dove with him, although I had him lead 2 of my barracudas on a pleasure dive and he got them lost... so that did make them look up to me a bit more and I'll take that.
Also regarding staffing last session, I had the mortifying discovery that i was the oldest person on the boat, at a whopping age of 20. Gordo turned 20 a few days before end of session and hosted a party for the staff, where we exiled the mates to the bow of the boat and broke out the cold cokes, pizza and junk food. We also ate downstairs which no one is supposed to do, so it was kinda fun ot break the rules then hear the mates getting in trouble for it later... hehe. The party was a lot of fun though, we all talked about the random things that have happened this session and the pranks that have been played and who we though the culprits were. Pranking is a fairly honored tradition here it seems, so I'm still working on some good ones to pull this last session, since I can guarantee no one will see them coming from me. A personal favorite was waking up with crabs, or at least being crabby. Banana (the resident prank boat) had taken hermit crabs off the local island that night and deposited them around the various boats... we later had a moment of silence for them at a staff meeting when Mike explained they were land hermit crabs, so the shipmates throwing them overboard would have proven fatal... ooops. Another was that the rescue boat retrieved a lost anchor for couteau, then sank it again in the night in the middle of the bay with couteaus dingy attached to it. the thank you cake that was baked for the rescue boat was still given to them, upside down on their deck, with icing. Haven't pulled any pranks myself yet, but I did choose to drop off some dive lights at a randomly early morning on Banana, and had the staff radio-ing around asking what had happened, what we'd done, and trying to figure out what was missing. at this poing I think I could just opt with performing random acts of kindness and having all of the staff freaking out about what potentially bad things could be happening that they're missing.
All in all it was a really good session, the first one I was sorta antsy the whole time trying to get my bearings, but halfway into the second one I was more familiar and felt a bit more secure about what all I had to do. Part of the insecurity may have been due to Thumper, the dingy that I was gifted with last session and will be taking to Couteau in a few days. General statement when asked about Thumper, "I HATE Thumper", and general rants and raves about how she/he dies randomly and is hard to start, etc. Had a lot of trouble getting Thumper working for a while, and Al was the only one she liked.. so lucky him he got to help me cart empty tanks all the time, but then he ran over some reef and she started to like him a little less. Had my own day of carelessness where i was happy my open waters had done their first deeper dive and were awesome, my advanced divers had identified fish that didn't involve names that could be associated with anything lewd (go figure, the one fish they find in a book of thousands is called a Slippery Dick... 2 out of 3 sessions they've defied those odds, dammit). Anywho, I had Al with me, I was speeding along in Thumper, I see Jordan on Manic waving, and then Badumph! reef. Luckily no damage was done to the dingy, and my apologies to the reef... but that might have put some fear of retirement into Thumper cuz I've had better luck with her since. go figure.
All in all, despite perviness, a scuffle, and some theivery on the boat (all 3 accomplished by one, perviness by all really), the shipmates were a lot of fun. I was overjoyed that they had more than one CD, so that's a much better spread than last session, and some of them were oldies songs which was fun. Was slightly concerned that the boys adopted a song about rainbows to be the wake up song and general boat theme song... plus they pulled a quick one on the staff by buying a pink skull and crossbones flag that said Pirate Girl and put it on our boat (we figured it was a different boat, not our adolescent boys coming to grip with some version of sexuality... blech). Also lots of high pitched noises coming from the boys at night when they would play truth or dare up top... right above the staff bunk where Gordo and I slept. I guess I didn't care so much about their self proclaimed "gay time fiestas", but I just don't recall this sort of ranodom perviness when I was that age... maybe it's a gender thing. Did scare the crap out of them one morning by alluding to a few rumors I'd picked up and made them think I'd heard a whole game, of truth or dare (hehe) also had the boys from Venezuala concerned that I knew spanish fluently after yelling at them for talking about inappropraite things. So while they got away with some stuff, they did think that walls had ears and things quieted down some. Had some fun dance offs with the shipmates though, laughed when they created scuba skill moves to the beat of one song and had a little scuba macarena of sorts. Also learned some sailing terms in French for one boy who barely spoke english and generally couldn't keep up with the group during lectures and random discussions. One night I let Al and Gordo hit the bar and volunteered to watch the sea monkies (Kyle, the scuba director on another boat called them all monkeys and I figured sea monkeys was all too approrpriate), so Nicolas (the French student) and I stayed up and talked some and struggled to tie some monkeys fists and turks heads till the other shipmates crashed our knot tying party... pretty cool. Not to mention that the diving is pretty amazing, and working with a bunch of advanced is fun since it's more play and less work. On our deep dive we took a bottle down so we could put compressed air in it and have it expand on it's way to the surface (half the flotilla prolly heard when a shipmate took the lid off that dasani bottle and it flew past the sail with a bang and puff), plus eggs at depth don't really fall apart... the yolk becomes all rubber and you can squish it around and roll it between your fingers and stuff, good fun. And on a note, at least as far as diving goes, the old saying that men never ask for directions is true... only the girls would admit they got lost on the Navigation dive and surfaced to look for the dingy... the guys swam in murky water until they lucked our and found us again... goobers. But all in all I can't complain about the students on a dive note.
Anywho, tis the day off and I'm trying to find as much fresh fruit and veggies as I can find since those are a rare commodity on the boat. I hope everyone is doing well and I'll be home pretty soon since the next session is only 17 days and I leave shortly after the session ends. I hope everyone is doing well and having a good time, take care!